This year Newsweek magazine went bankrupt. According to a US News report, they were sold for one dollar to a 91-year old billionaire, who merged the magazine with another money-losing operation.

I subscribed to Newsweek off and on for many years. I finally gave it up when the bias in the reporting got to be so offensive to me that I just could not in good conscience keep sending them money. For a long time I was able to overlook the occasional article that I disagreed with, telling myself that was the price of a free media, and that being informed was worth the price of occasionally being offended. But then the articles seemed to get more pointed and more frequently against my views, not merely reporting facts but weaving commentary into hard news articles and writing specifically against conservative Christian views. The articles got more and more frequent, so that I eventually couldn’t stand it, sent them a letter telling them what I thought, and dropped the subscription.

“There is a liberal bias. It’s demonstrable. You look at some statistics. About 85 percent of the reporters who cover the White House vote Democratic, they have for a long time. There is a, particularly at the networks, at the lower levels, among the editors and the so-called infrastructure, there is a liberal bias. There is a liberal bias at Newsweek, the magazine I work for — most of the people who work at Newsweek live on the upper West Side in New York and they have a liberal bias….[ABC White House reporter] Brit Hume’s bosses are liberal and they’re always quietly denouncing him as being a right-wing nut.”— NewsweekWashington Bureau Chief Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, May 12, 1996.

My personal opinion is that this bias is motivated, at least in part, by a deep-seated desire to not have to answer for one’s moral choices. Another major factor is that the protestant work ethic went out of style with protestantism. The puritans taught a system of hard work, based in the Bible, that if one did not work he should not eat. Part of liberalism was motivated by a genuine compassion for the underprivileged, those who got a raw deal in life. But what started out as a move to help those who had little ways of helping themselves, eventually turned into a class warfare, fed by politicians who wanted to get elected. So we’ve moved away from the idea that wealthy people got wealthy because they worked hard, to believing that wealthy people somehow do not deserve all that money, and it should be given to anyone who has less. The media, which Newsweek’s editor admitted were overwhelmingly liberal, weave their own views of social causes into their reporting. Speaking from a godless perspective, they try to tell us how we ought to think.

With all the political and social machinations over conservative and liberal, a few good things got mashed in the gears. One was the idea that regular, church-going, middle-America people were valuable. Conservative Christians were somehow the enemy, something for liberal politicians to use to rally their voters. Conservative politicians tried to act conservative enough to get Christians votes without really believing the causes that are important to conservative Christians.

Meanwhile, Newsweek is bankrupt. I wish I could say that there was an answer, a way to hold the liberal press accountable, a way to get them to stop insulting us, a way to better communicate our message. But I honestly do not believe there is a good way. The conservative magazine National Review has been in publication since 1955, and has consistently lost money during it’s entire lifespan, depending on donations from benefactors. Are we to believe that after all these years, people will suddenly start reading and believing conservatively? If I bought Newsweek from that billionaire for two dollars and shut them down, would it help? Somehow I doubt it.

Our only hope is for individuals to keep their hand to the plow. Tell your elected officials what you believe, vote Biblical values, share the good news of Jesus with a dying world, and pray for our nation. This is our only hope.